Survivor
by SereneCalamity
Summary: She was strong. She survived. Clary-centric. Clace. Oneshot.


_Alright, so, I just really wanted to right something Clary-centric, and about her getting over an attack. Girl power and all that shit._

 _Disclaimer_ _: I do not own the characters._

It had been five days since the Shadowhunter Academy in Idris had been stormed by a rogue group of Seelies.

It had been one day since the celebration of life and death, where the Institute had said goodbye to those who had been killed in the attack.

And today was the first day back in class. The head of the Institute, Robert Lightwood, had pondered that perhaps it was too soon for the students to be going back to their studies, but Maryse Lightwood had insisted that normalcy would help them get back to their lives.

"How about this?" Isabelle Lightwood held up a scarf, pretty and light, almost see-through. "Magnus brought it back for me from one of his trips to Eygpt," she sighed as she moved to stand in front of the mirror and held it up against her. "I don't understand how my brother manages to end up with a boyfriend who takes him all over the world at the click of his fingers just to get a good cup of coffee and I can't even get a call back."

"Pink's not really my colour," Clarissa Morgenstern murmured as she glanced toward the scarf that her friend was holding.

The attack by the Seelies wasn't random.

It was practically a death wish to attack a Shadowhunter, and to come after an academy, where their children were; they had signed their death warrant. Fortunately for them, they had been killed in the attack, and the reason it was fortunate, is because the parents of the three young Shadowhunters who had been killed wanted blood, and they wanted suffering from the ones who had taken away their children.

The reason that the Seelies had attacked was because one of their own had been killed by a Shadowhunter.

By Clary.

"What about this?" Lydia Branwell asked as she held up a thick necklace, a choker made of lace and beads, that would be close to the skin of her neck without choking her. "It goes with what you're wearing." Clary pursed her lips as she looked at the necklace, and then down at what she was wearing. Black jeans, a dark purple singlet and a black leather jacket. The jacket belonged to her boyfriend, and it was a bit too big for her, but it smelt like him, and it was comforting, and she needed that today.

"Maybe," Clary said quietly as she took the necklace from Lydia and turned it over in her hands. Lydia looked over at Isabelle, and the two exchanged a worried gaze before looking back at each other.

Clary had been on a couple of missions before. She was almost seventeen, and the age to begin missions was sixteen. She was a good fighter, the top in most of her classes, and she came from a long bloodline of Shadowhunters. Her mother and father were two of the top Shadowhunters, and they had trained both her and her brother from a young age.

But the last mission she had gone on, along with her boyfriend, Jace Herondale, and Isabelle, it had taken a turn for the worst.

It was the first time that she had killed someone.

They had been sent out on a recon mission, to look into a rogue group of Seelie's that had been attacking mundanes. The Seelie Queen didn't seem to be doing much to get them back under control, and so the Institute was stepping in. It wasn't meant to be a dangerous mission, the three young Shadowhunters had simply been sent in to gather intel, find out who the Seelie's were and try to figure out who their next target would be.

She hadn't wanted to—she had wanted to bring the Seelie in, just like they had been ordered to. Except the Seelie wouldn't come, wouldn't surrender, and had lashed out at Clary when Jace and Isabelle had been fighting off other Seelie knights, and she had had no other option. Samuel Whitewillow had attacked and attacked and Clary hadn't had any choice but to retaliate with force.

She knew that it was kill or be killed, with the way that he had kept coming at her, but that hadn't stopped her from curling up in a ball in the shower that night and crying until her throat was raw and her eyes were stinging.

"You know, we could just use make up?" Isabelle suggested as an alternate. "I could call Magnus?"

"Yeah, I mean...It would be pretty thick, but if you don't want to wear anything...It might hurt if you have something pressing against the bruises," Lydia said softly. Clary didn't respond as she put the necklace down on the top of her drawers and walked over to her mirror, looking at her reflection.

Several hour after the attack, the skin around her neck had been bright red, and it had been obvious that it was going to bruise. Two days after the attack, a bloom of furious looking purple and blue bruises circled her entire neck, and it was painfully obvious where each of Kaelie Whitewillow's fingers had circled around her throat, each finger differentiated by a fresh line of bruises. It had been painful to talk for the first couple of days after the attack, and the healing runes had only worked after a few hours, but she had refused to let Magnus work his magic over the bruising.

She wasn't sure why, but she didn't want them to just disappear into thin air.

Kaelie was Samuel's older sister, and she had been the one to lead the group of Seelie's in their attack on the Institute. They had killed five young Shadowhunters and two of the tutors before they had found Clary. The red head had been with Jace and Alexander Lightwood, and they had taken on most of the Seelie's, but it had left Clary alone with Kaelie.

She had fought well, but Kaelie was years older than her, and was a trained warrior. She had managed to get Clary subdued, shoved to the ground, and there had been a vicious look in her eye as she had thrown away her weapon and circled her hands around Clary's throat. She had been gathering her magic, using it against Clary, and she had been squeezing—squeezing so tightly that Clary could feel her vision was beginning to blacken at the edges and she couldn't even make a noise given the pressure on her trachea.

Clary wasn't sure what had managed to pull her through and fight against Kaelie, finding something deep inside of her that gave her the kick to drive her leg upward, her knee smacking into Kaelie's stomach and loosening her hold.

She had then killed her second person, the sister of the first man that she had killed.

"I don't need to hide them," she finally said, turning to her friends. Sometimes it hurt a little when she lifted her voice, still healing from the pressure applied five days ago. "I don't need to hide them," she repeated as she looked at her friends. Lydia looked a little confused while Isabelle just gave her a gentle smile. "I survived, I don't need to hide that." Lydia's confusion cleared up and she nodded.

"Damn right you don't," Isabelle stated as she tossed the scarf away and looped an arm through Clary's. "Alright, let's go." Lydia linked arms with Clary on the opposite side from Isabelle. The three girls left the room and headed down the hall. Alec, Magnus and Jace were waiting for them down the steps that lead to the classes, and Jace smiled widely at her as they approached.

He was worried about her—he had been worried about her since the death of Samuel several weeks ago. But she was doing fine. She was hurting and sometimes she was still crying, but that was okay, because that was part of their job, their life. That was something she was going to have to get used, to adapt to.

"Hey, babe," Jace moved in to her side, Lydia moving out of the way so that Jace could sling an arm around her shoulders and press a kiss to her temple. "You look beautiful," he whispered in her ear before they continued walking to their class.

There were looks from other students as they walked, but they were admiring and almost appreciative. Clary tilted her chin upward, not trying to hide her face or the bruises that were littering her skin.

She didn't need to.

She was a survivor.

 _Let me know what you think :)_


End file.
